How Should The World Respond When An 8-Year Old Bride Is Raped To Death?!

As much as I LOVE learning about different cultures and the normative behaviour within them, yesterday I ended up taking in an article I WISH I could unread called “Yemen: 8 year old girl dies from internal injuries on wedding night”. After reading the title my mind scrambled to make sense of it all, and I asked myself “did they forget the 1, 2, or 3 in front of the 8?” But after seeing the young girl’s picture, I realized that not only was 8 was the right age, but she also actually WAS a bride. But the grim part of the sentence was “internal injuries”, which I initially interpreted as her 40-year old husband physically assaulting her for whatever reason (punches to the chest, knees to the stomach, etc.), but after realizing what was implied, I instantly became SICK. But here’s the crazy thing: Technically her husband broke no Yemeni laws.

Figures state that a quarter of all Yemeni girls marry before the age of 15, and after the country repealed a short-lived law in 2009 that set the minimum age for marriage at 17, it’s clear that there is a deep religious and cultural acceptance of this practice in some of the rural areas of Yemen. So let’s just fast-forward to the issue that we’re ALL wondering: What should the global community’s response be?

So, once again, what should our collective global response be? Girls all over the globe are being legally enslaved, yet it seems this issue does not receive the attention it should. To be honest, I have no grand ideology on how this practice can be stopped or prevented, but I know spreading knowledge is a CRUCIAL element to eliciting any real change. So regardless of whether “Rawan” is alive, married, or made up, it doesn’t discount the reality that this barbaric practice is more than just a small occurrence.

This Is Your Conscience

When Lincoln Anthony Blades is not writing for his controversial and critically acclaimed blog ThisIsYourConscience.com, he can be found contributing articles for Uptown Magazine. Lincoln wrote the hilarious and insightful book "You're Not A Victim, You're A Volunteer: How To Stop Letting Love Kick Your Ass". He is also a public speaker who has sat on panels all over North America and the Caribbean.